Integrity: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

A Review of KAL (2005)
Director: Ruchi Narain
fiction

One look at the posters, and it is very easy to dismiss Ruchi Narain's directorial debut Kal as one of the endless cheesy youth-oriented potboilers being churned out by the Hindi film industry. Even worse, it’s easy to mistake it for Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Kwaishein Aisi, on which Narain was an assistant, especially because it also features Chitrangda Singh and Shiny Ahuja, who play two of the protagonists in Kal.

But, as the proverb says, never judge a book by its cover. The very beginning of Kal is unorthodox, to say the least: Bhavana (Chitrangda), the protagonist, is tearfully viewing a bunch of video-messages on her Mac laptop, in chronological order over the duration of a year. Through these, and the voice of the narrator Rohan, we come to know the sketchy details: Bhavana and Tarun (Shiny) were very much in love and planning to marry, and had a great time with their gang of friends Sangeeta, Teji, and Bhavana’s best friend Maya. Unfortunately, Tarun falls in love with Maya instead, and marries her – a decision which causes a rift in the group. Everyone drifts apart – Tarun, whose marriage to Maya was against her family wishes, finally gains acceptance with her business-magnate father and quickly moves up the corporate ladder. Teji also goes to work for Tarun, which Bhavana sees as disloyalty on his part and apathy towards her heartbreak. Sangeeta goes to the UK to study law, and Bhavana pursues her career as a photographer. A tearful video-apology from Maya does nothing to soothe her ruffled feathers, and consolations from Sangeeta don’t work either. Finally, Sangeeta announces that she is coming down from the UK to celebrate her wedding in Mumbai, and asks Bhavana to come down for her wedding.

At the wedding, Bhavana meets Rohan, a journalist and a friend of the groom Shekar. Rohan, who is struggling to recover from a failed relationship, feels instantly attracted to her. Bhavana is still smarting about her breakup with Tarun but is surprised when Sangeetha reveals she didn’t invite either him or Maya, and even more surprised to hear they’re getting a divorce. Sangeeta tries her level best to hook Bhavana and Rohan together, and succeeds. Bhavana slowly gets into the party mood and later is very excited to be dropped home by Rohan. Just as she gets intimate with Rohan, Bhavana is shocked to find a very drunk Tarun in her house.

An embarrassed Rohan leaves in a huff, and Bhavana grudgingly lets Tarun stay the night, as he is too drunk to move. The next day, she leaves him still sleeping to go to work, and there she sees the news that Maya has died the previous evening. Horrified, Bhavana calls home only to find out that Tarun is missing.

From here the film accelerates to a mind-dizzying pace as allegations fly fast and furious between Maya’s family, the Jalans, and Tarun’s family, the Haksars, including Tarun’s socialite sister Ira (Sarika), and aided by the multitude pf presspersons hounding the prosperous families. Rajesh, Maya’s slimy brother, tries his level best to make sure her father, a heart patient, does not know of his daughter’s death, which had occurred the same night Tarun had been at Bhavana’s house. Bhavana, in a state of panic and still angry over her failed affair with Tarun, tells the police that Tarun was at her place that night, which instantly makes Tarun a prime suspect. Bhavana’s father Dayal (Boman Irani), who also works for Jalan, promptly returns from a holiday in Cochin on hearing the news. Tarun surrenders, get beaten up in jail, and slips into a short coma. Maya’s adoring younger brother Anuj comes down from the US, and the press goes berserk. There is now a rift between the Jalans, the Haksars, and Dayals – three prosperous families that were once friends. And in the midst of it all is the journalist Rohan, who is madly in love with Bhavana and yet trying to piece the puzzle together.

The film cuts speedily back and forth between the lives of Bhavana and Sangeeta, Maya’s closest friends, Anuj, Tarun and the drug-addled Teji (who, as it later turns out, was madly in love with Maya.) On the evening of Maya’s birthday, after Anuj throws a posthumous birthday party to honour her, Bhavana finds out that Tarun had not gone beyond the cigarette shop outside her flat; he had been too drunk to do so, and therefore definitely could not have killed Maya. Worse things happen: Teji goes insane, worrying Bhavana and Sangeeta further, while Tarun is still in a coma. Finally, Teji blurts out a shocking revelation: Tarun and Maya had procured a spy-cam developed by him to capture her brother Rajesh in the act of taking bribes. However, Rajesh found out, and Tarun turned against Maya for fear of his career. Thus Maya, who had helped her husband expose her own family, had suddenly found herself alone in a world of corruption she couldn’t live in, and was last heard threatening to kill herself.

Shortly after this, Teji is found dead of a drug overdose, apparently unable to handle any more. To make things worse, the Jalans set up an IT raid at the Dayals’ home and ask them to evacuate, the press is constantly hounding Bhavana and her family, Dayal resigns from Jalan’s company only to steal a file from his office, and Ira cannot seem to make up her mind on which side to take. In the midst of all this, Sangeeta calls Bhavana in tears and tells her that some of her belongings that had remained behind in London have just arrived. Among them is a tape made by Maya.

In the tape, Maya reveals that she was unable to take any more after Tarun had abandoned their moralistic pursuit of exposing her brother sided with him instead. As Bhavana and Sangeeta watch in shock and grief, she declares that she will kill herself. And the mystery is finally solved, but not without leaving Bhavana, Sangeetha and Anuj disgusted at the level of corruption right under their very noses. As a final act of revenge, Bhavana talks to the now-recovered Tarun using a spy-cam, and gets him to spill the beans on the actual events leading to Maya’s suicide, and the corruption that preceded it. She gives it to Rohan and helps Rohan prepare his TV expose on the Jalans. Thus, she repays Maya for saving her from a marriage to Tarun.

To her credit, the director has also taken into consideration the fact that all the characters are not black-and-white; there are shades of grey in just about everyone, and it is not easy to label them as good and evil. Also she makes a point that while we may think someone is doing something wrong, they are convinced that they are doing it right – which is the very foundation of the differences in ideology.

The film has its comic moments, which are but few. One is the scene where Anuj, Sangeeta and Bhavana go to a psychic to help them contact Maya in the netherworld – a hilarious reminder of the human tendency to take refuge in superstitions in times of desperation. And Narain is careful not to fall prey to aggravating clichés: song-and-dance sequences in Switzerland (given that the protagonists are so wealthy), and a comatose Tarun suddenly waking up and unable to remember who he is and how he got there. But it does have its groan-inducing moments, notably during the scene when a man stares at a TV in a shop window while it is airing the expose, and wipes a tear from his eye.

The cast is pretty well suited for the film, though Chitrangda seems too beautiful to be convincing as the girl-next-door that she was meant to be. Boman Irani, as usual, is the life of the film. Sarika is every inch the media-savvy socialite, and her return to the screen will be much looked forward to. Some of the costumes seem too glamourised and Bollywood-inspired but given the characters' high social status, it doesn’t seem very out of place.

For a debutante director, Ruchi Narain has done a brilliant job. Although quite long at two and a half hours, the narrative cuts so quickly between events and characters that before you can even digest a new twist, another one slaps right across your face. It does get a bit tiresome, but the confusion is genuine in the sense that it parallels the infinitely murky events in the story itself, which finally culminates in the explosive revelation that, sometimes, the only way to do something is to do it wrong.

Bad Education? Not From This Little Teacher

NOT ONE LESS (1999)
Director: Zhang Yimou
fiction

Chinese director Zhang Yimou my be better known for weaving opulent tapestry onscreen, beginning with Red Sorghum (1987) and climaxing with Raise The Red Lantern (1991). His most recent film following the same style was The House Of Flying Daggers (2004).

However, Not One Less, set in post-Communist China, is completely different. Its documentary-inspired style is reminiscent of Iranian films with its extensive coverage of the dusty Chinese village landscape. And as far as the story is concerned, its bitter-sweetness interspersed with moments of poignancy and innocent comic interludes is like revisiting Children Of Heaven.

Mei is a thirteen-year-old girl who has just finished primary school, and is not very good at her subjects. She is asked to fill in as a substitute for the village teacher Gao, who has to take a month off to go see his ailing mother. Mei, like most pre-adolescents, is least bothered about the job, but is quick to take it on for the fifty Yuan that she is promised. In fact, when one of the students, a fine runner, is selected to attend an Athletes School, Mei refuses to let her go, fearing4 that her salary may be cut if the number of students reduces.

Mei and her students don’t get along with each other at first – for them, she’s too young and is not as intimidating as Gao. And to her, they’re just a bunch of pesky kids on whom she shouldn’t be wasting her time, but the thought of the money spurs her on. She shows no interest other than writing a lesson on the blackboard for them to copy, and they grow increasingly cranky as she refuses to let them leave until late afternoon. Gradually, however, she earns the grudging acceptance of the class and learns to accept them too, and slowly begins to involve them in lessons and songs. Obviously, the classroom scenes make for the bulk of the comic parts of the film, with the children at their most natural and boisterous best.

One of the students is the exceedingly naughty Zhang Huike, who’s some sort of nemesis for Mei. He’s also the class bully and getting constantly reprimanded by her for his escapades. However, one morning Zhang is nowhere to be seen. Mei comes to know from the mayor that he has gone to the city to work to help his ailing widowed mother pay off some debts. Not wanting to lose another student, Mei enlists her class to help raise money for her trip to the city to seek out their classmate. They pool in their allowances and even move bricks to raise the cash, while the apathetic mayor refuses even to pay Mei her fifty Yuan in advance.

Two days after Zhang’s disappearance, Mei makes her way to the city despite the mayor’s protests, and this is where she realises that there are things beyond her realm of knowledge. As she desperately seeks out Zhang amidst the chaos, dust and noise of the city, Zhang is begging for food, unaware that he is being missed. Mei is forced to part with her money: a little to Zhang’s co-worker who accompanies her to the station to look for him, and the remaining to buy paper and ink to write ‘missing’ notices which she finally realises are useless as Zhang has been missing for three days.

Now completely penniless, Zhang clings to one last hope – a TV station where she was told she could broadcast a message. Naturally, she is not allowed in, and spends almost two days waiting until the sympathetic station manager decides to let her appear on a program that focuses on issues affecting modern China. Mei is introduced as a village teacher, and the dam finally breaks as she tearfully asks Zhang to return. As the episode is aired, Zhang, who has managed to find work washing dishes in an eatery, sees his teacher on his employer’s TV and breaks down.

All ends well with a happy student-teacher reunion and loads of donations from the kind city residents who see the TV show. As they make their way to the village, which gives them a hero’s welcome, Zhang vows to finish school and find a job so he can buy his young teacher some flowers. The remaining students cluster around Mei back in school as each takes out a bit of coloured chalk and lets new hope take shape on the blackboard in the form of various words: sky, water, diligence. Mei becomes the village heroine for her heroic stubbornness and single-minded devotion to her student.

The film is deeply moving with a heart-warming storyline, and should definitely rank among Yimou’s greats. The rural Chinese landscape is shown in all its rugged beauty and is well contrasted with the chaotic city crowds, concrete and traffic. The premise of the city-dwellers coming to the rescue of the villagers (yet again) seems like a kind of clichéd political statement, but that is only if you delve deep into it. Otherwise everything else is top-notch.

Not One Less is a wonderful tribute to the triumph of the human spirit against all odds. It is also a tribute to the oldest human relationship – that unbreakable bond between teacher and student.

One of the most powerful moments in the film is when village boy Zhang is asked by the TV host about his most lasting impression of the city. In all innocence, he says: “I had to beg for food. I’ll never forget that.”

Missed It? You'll Be MIFFed

A Review Of The 9th Mumbai International Film Festival 2006

My head is throbbing. It’s like the hangover one gets after downing several exotic cocktails in quick succession. It hurts quite a bit.

But when you’ve just returned from the 9th Mumbai International Film Festival 2006, you can’t be anything but euphoric. After all, you’ve just drunk a year’s worth of amazing movies – documentaries, short fiction and animation - in one week. It’s been four days since it ended, but I’m still on a high, and thirsty for more - neat and on the rocks.


There were several wonderful documentaries, ranging from quirky (Panamarenko: The Magic Of Art) to touching (The Ladies’.) Panamarenko, directed by Francoise Levie and Anna Van Der Wee, was a light-hearted documentary on famous Belgian contemporary artist Panamarenko, a genius who builds weird contraptions that look like flying machines – and actually work! The man’s creative exploits left the audience spellbound by his combination of aesthetic and scientific genius.

A documentary that struck a chord with cricket-crazy India was Save Your Legs, directed by Boyd Hicklin. This laughter riot followed a group of Australian cowboys on a cricket tour with ordinary Indians in five cities – Chennai, Kolkata, Varanasi, Jaipur and Mumbai. A celebration of gully cricket through Aussie lens, this slickly paced film with the colourful narration clicked instantly with the audience.

From neighbouring New Zealand came a documentary by Sandy Crichton and Indian student Pranjali Bhave, titled Lord Of The Ringlets. A documentary on 15-year-old genius Hamish Patrick, who is a local legend for his almost prodigious knowledge of entomology and butterflies, the film follows his efforts to capture the elusive Forest Ringlet, a butterfly that scientists had long given up hope on.

There were two films that dealt with Israel’s modern problems: Dan Setton’s The Next War (Israel) and Elle Flanders’ Zero Degrees Of Separation (Canada.) The Next War deals with the increasing Zionist militancy in Israel, and their obsession with making Israel a completely Jewish state and suppressing democracy. These people, the followers of Jewish extremist Rabbi Kahane, call themselves the ‘Kahanists’ and their desire for a state exclusively for Israeli Jews puts them at odds with the authorities, who are still struggling to restore peace with the Israelis and Palestinians.

Zero Degrees Of Separation is a touching film about two homosexual couples, one male and the other female, living in troubled Israel. In both couples, one is an Israeli Jew and the other is Palestinian Arab. The film, poignant, depressing and comic by turns, chronicles their struggles against the authorities amidst the religious tension surrounding them.

One of the less interesting ones was Television And I, directed by Andres Di Tella, a semi-autobiographical look at the history of television in Argentina and how it changed the course of a whole nation. Andres’s father was closely connected to radio mogul Jaime Yankelevich, who is credited with introducing television to Argentina.

A very touching documentary was I For India, directed by Sandhya Suri. Sandhya’s father Dr. Yash Pal Suri, along with his family left his native Punjab as a young man to work as a doctor in the UK. Instead of writing letters, he and his family back in India communicated by recording events from everyday life on super-8 cameras and audio letters, and sending them back and forth. An honest story of their alienation in the UK, the fervent pleadings of their family to return to India, their brief return in the early 1980s and the realization that life actually was better back in England. It takes a long, hard look at the ‘brain drain’ and the actual reason for its occurrence, and successfully argues both sides of emigration. At the end of the film, you are left with the plain truth: you can take the man out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the man, so it doesn’t matter whether you go or not.

Debutante Sohini Dasgupta’s I Couldn’t Be Your Son Mom examines the life of Thista, a woman trapped in a man’s body, and her struggles against society’s rigid norms against transsexuals and it’s ill treatment of them.


The Fiction category was truly a visual feast, with a smorgasbord of films from all over the globe. Ranging from Felix Von Muralt’s hilariously Hollywood-ish Visite Medicale (Switzerland), which is a peek into a compulsory visit by foreign nationals to a French medical reception center in Paris, to the gritty 00:00 PM (India) directed by Surendra Hiwarale, which looks at the lives of two mortuary workers, the fiction films were openly enjoyed by the audience.

One that stood out was the Australian film Where Is She? The Secret Footage of Dr. F. Height by Richard Vette, which was, uniquely, filmed like a documentary. As a result, the story about an Australian doctor who rears an ape-child for the shock-treatment of patients suffering from Frugell’s Syndrome, and whose chilling practice is caught by other doctors on a Super-8, was so convincing it actually managed to scare the audience!

A touching film was Nilanjan Lahiri’s A Living Illusion, a story about an alcoholic writer’s love for his estranged grandson that compels him to kidnap the boy, and their subsequent involvement in a road accident. In my opinion, Lahiri showed traces of inspiration by M. Night Shyamalan, especially in the twist, but the film was wonderful nevertheless.

K. T. Muraleedharan’s brightly coloured experimental animation Ana, a film about the travails of an elephant and his mahout, was one of the two films by Toonz Animation India. The other was Atul N. Rao’s cute animation film Maharaja Cowboy, produced by Toonz, about a young South Indian prince who runs away to the old West USA.


The Oscar Films, one of the Special Packages, were undoubtedly the biggest crowd-pullers. The first film was The Fog Of War: Eleven Lessons From The Life Of Robert S. McNamara – a brilliant Oscar-nominated documentary by Errol Morris and Michael Williams, which examines the life of Robert S. McNamara, the US Secretary of Defence from 1961 to 1968 (under presidents JFK and Lyndon Johnson), and President of the World bank from 1968 to 1981. McNamara’s honesty on issues relating to the Vietnam War, Cuban missiles and the US relationship with the Soviet was surprising and unexpected, and in my opinion, was a wealth of information relating to US politics and the JFK and Johnson presidencies. One particularly touching part is when McNamara reveals that a lot of fighter pilots in WWII turned their planes back on the first outing because they feared death. It emphasizes the truth that the men who go to war to kill and get killed are no thick-skinned tin soldiers; they’re as vulnerable and scared as the rest of us.

Another North American Oscar-nominee documentary was Hardwood by Hubert Davis and Erin Faith Young, which follows the life of Davis’ s father, former basketball star Mel Davis, a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. Mel fell in love with a white woman and had a child with her, but married a black woman and fathered a child with her too. The film examines the plight of the women and the two sons, whose lives revolved around Mel.

There were several other animation, documentary and short films. Animation giant Disney opened the section with the gorgeous, utterly Latin Lorenzo by Mike Gabriel and Baker Bloodworth, set to foot-tapping Tango music. Made with neon colours on a black background and very reminiscent of Moulin Rouge, it’s about a fat cat who prizes his tail and scoffs at those lacking one, until a jealous tailless feline puts a spell on the tail that makes it come to life and drive its owner mad.

Ryan, Chris Landreth’s homage to maverick animator Ryan Larkin, was a quirky look at the impoverished life of an animation artist, who is so wasted his nerves stick out of the mangled remains of his head and body. Although looking rather like an odd combination of the cyborg in Terminator and the mis-en-scene of Fight Club, it was rendered brilliantly in 3-D.

The twisted but hilarious Guard Dog by Bill Plympton, which attempts to examine why dogs may find butterflies, birds and even flowers as threats to their masters, had an unexpected twist in the end that left the audience laughing and shaken at the same time.

Then there was the wacky Nibbles by Chris Hinton, an experimental animation about the joy that men find in a fishing trip – more specifically, in the fast-food joints on the way to the fishing spot.

But the best animated film was, without any doubt, the beautiful and extremely moving Australian clay animation Harvie Krumpet. Directed by Adam Elliott and narrated by Geoffrey Rush, it’s about a Polish boy, a loser by all accounts who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome and is mercilessly teased at his school. The film follows his migration to Australia, to the neighbourhood of Spotsville, and his hard life, loves and accidents. A must-see for those who think their life is hard; this film was the only one that came closest to receiving a standing ovation.

There were three lovely non-English language Oscar nominees from Canada and Slovenia. Most (Canada) by Bobby Garabedian and William Zabka, about three people – a single father, his smart, adoring son, and a troubled young woman, and the horrific accident that changes their lives.

German student Ulrike Grote’s Ausreißer (The Runaway), an Oscar nominee for best short film (live action), is a touching tale about a man who suddenly meets the son he never knew he had, and their quest for the boy’s missing mother. There was a surprise twist, again a la M. Night Shyamalan, but in no way did it undermine the tenderness of the movie.

(A)Torzija by Stefan Arsenijevic, tells the touching tale of a Slovenian amateur choir waiting to leave for a concert in Paris by an underground tunnel, while the place above ground is being bombed. Suddenly one of the members, a veterinary student, is urgently summoned to attend to a cow in labour, which is in stress from the bombing and in danger of losing her calf. At her impoverished owner’s behest, the student and his choir sing their songs in an attempt to placate the frightened animal since she provides food for the whole family. Poignantly funny, the movie received great applause from the audience.


The Iranian Films were also interesting. The short documentary Poolkeh by Majid Sabagh-Behrouz is about a festival called Poolkeh, a homage to the Prophet Mohammad, which is celebrated by Iranian men, and involves the dangerous art of swinging a burning torch in an arc, along both sides of the body by turn. Not exactly groundbreaking, but it was short and informative.

Zahira Amiri’s Black Box comprises footage taken of an Iranian international airport, right from booking tickets to boarding the plane, set to the chilling narration of voices from the indestructible Flight Data Recorder (also known as “black box”) of an ill-fated Iranian flight which crashed, killing everyone on board. Though not as moving as intended, it was an extremely innovative venture.

The creme de la creme of this ensemble was the brilliant documentary by Mahnaz Afzali, The Ladies’, set in the ladies’ restroom of a park in Iran. This is a gathering place for Iranian women from all walks of life – prostitutes, reporters, impoverished mothers – where they exchange stories and trade laughs, tears and advice on everything, mostly love and sex. Marvellously candid, the raw honesty and the revelation of the real women behind the black veil was the best part of this film, which, needless to say, received a long, hard round of applause.

Indians abroad had a big line-up this year at MIFF – New Zealand’s Pranjali Bhave co-directed Lord Of The Ringlets; US-based Nilanjan Lahiri with Focus and A Living Illusion, Atul N. Rao’s Maharaja Cowboy; and UK-based Sandhya Suri’s I For India.

As far as themes go, sexual minorities had a big presence this year at the box office and will be dominating the upcoming Oscars (with Brokeback Mountain, Transamerica, and Capote winning most of the nominations.) MIFF was, therefore, a perfect prelude, with the aforementioned Zero Degrees Of Separation and I Couldn’t Be Your Son Mom, being joined by, among others, The Bath, Sachin Kundalkar’s daringly honest film about a male prostitute and his encounter with a compassionate client (Rajit Kapoor) that changes his life.

Overall it was such a heady experience that I’m now a certified MIFFaholic. And no, I’m not going to check into a de-addiction clinic.

... And Life Whimpers For Breath In This Barren Land

A Review of BLACKBOARDS (2000)
Director: Samira Makhmalbaf
fiction

He climbs the rocky slopes, clutching a black plank of wood across his back. He is starving and tired, but has a burning desire to quench the thirst for knowledge of anyone who needs it, and all he wants in return is a scrap of bread and some water.

Sayid is a teacher, with no belongings except his treasured blackboard and some chalk. He and his colleague Reeboir, just two of an entire group of teachers, have only one desire in life: to teach math and Arabic to anyone who is willing to learn. They scale the barren cliffs on the border between Iran and Iraq, in constant danger from war-bombs, carrying their blackboards like Christ's crosses (Click here for relevant article.) As they keep one eye on the narrow slopes, the other on trigger-happy soldiers, and separate from the group and each other, the future looks bleak. None of the people in any of the villages in the valley seem to want an education, as they're too busy being frightened for their lives.

Samira Makhmalbaf made Blackboards when she was just 20, no mean feat despite being the daughter of acclaimed Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The film, her second feature after the controversial Apple (click here for related article) which she made when she was barely 18, is both poignant and disturbing.

Sayid meets a group of elderly Kurdish men searching for the road to Iraq, while Reeboir joins a group of young Kurdish boys smuggling goods over the border. The film is actually quite humourous in the beginning; it's a strange feeling to laugh when the characters onscreen are hungry and tired and have absolutely no idea that they're being funny.

The elderly men are struggling to get one of the members to urinate, and he is in agony. Sayid joins the group despite many protests, and persists in asking them if anybody is interested in learning to read and write. He becomes a nuisance, and nobody is willing to share their scanty reserves of food or water. Finally, a deal is struck when Sayid agrees to take them to the Iran-Iraq border for forty walnuts. Thus he becomes a strange part of this pious and elderly Kurdish group.

The old man, who is unable to urinate, is suffering and wants to get his daughter married off so he can die in peace. Thus one of his acquaintances decides to get the old man's daughter Haleleh married off to Sayid. The nuptials are hurriedly performed without ceremony, with Haleleh barely concentrating as she tends to her young son. Thereafter Sayid tries to teach Haleleh to read and write 'I love you', but she always ignores him.

In the meantime, Reeboir persists in trying to convince the group of boys about the advantages of an education, and all the while they're looking at him as if he's the idiot. However, One of them, also named Reeboir, shows a keen interest in learning, and a relieved Reeboir Sr. coaches him on spelling and pronunciation as they make their way along the perilous slopes. It is only when they stop to rest that the boys tell Reeboir that most of them do know how to read or write, but they're too busy trying to save their lives.

Sayid is finding hard to get Haleleh to talk to him, let alone say 'I love you'. Haleleh's father is still unable to urinate, while her son on the other hand, seems to be the opposite. Even a dip in the icy water of a nearby lake seems to do no good to the suffering elderly Kurd. Sayid meanwhile, tries his level best to fit into the group and woo his wife at the same time, trying to use the welcome pool of water as a catalyst.

Reeboir sets the fractured leg of a boy who falls off a cliff, but that still doesn't break any ice with the boys. They are all the more wary of getting close to him, except Reeboir Jr., who is still an eager learner. As Reeboir Sr stops to have some goat milk from a little girl - he tries to teach her too - his young namesake tries to spell his name. Unfortunately, just as Reeboir Jr. finishes the task successfully, he is hit by a bullet from the nearby border patrol. The rest of the group scatters wildly all over and many children are injured, some fatally. And no one knows what happens to Reeboir.

In another part of the border, Sayid manages to show the group of elderly Kurds the way to Iraq, but only after they refuse to believe him and almost get shot at in the process. Haleleh wants to go too, so Sayid is forced to divorce her and give her his blackboard as dowry. They walk off in opposite directions, and as the fog blinds them to each other forever, the words are still visible on the blackboard: I love you.

Samira has tried to show the rugged beauty of the barren, rocky border, and has openly showcased her sympathy for the displaced Kurds. Even the most heart-wrenching love is always touchingly funny, and the scenes featuring Sayid's attempts to woo his wife are just so. The poignancy reaches its climax in the last scene when Haleleh walks away with the blackboard bearing Sayid's words: I love you. It seems as if these words will continue to echo in the mountains long after Sayid's parting with Haleleh and his trusty blackboard, along with the echoes of Reeboir's voice teaching Reeboir Jr. to spell his name.

One scene especially, is searing: when there is more shooting on the group of elderly Kurds, Sayid gallantly hides Haleleh and her son underneath his blackboard. Haleleh's father finally manages to urinate, and this looks like a very strong moment of symbolism in the film, and we are just as relieved. For a while we are fooled into thinking that everything is over, that Haleleh will concede to Sayid, that her father is now all right, and that everything will be a happily-ever-after.

Unfortunately, we are reminded yet again that in the war-torn, mine-infested, barren beauty of the Iraq-Iran border - as on the borders of Israel-Palestine, India-Pakistan, Bosnia-Serbia - happy endings are rare.

Truly Moving

A Review of GARDEN STATE (2004)
Director: Zach Braff
fiction

For a bad start, it was a Monday in the dorm. Mondays are bad enough, and when you're in a place that leaves you little time to watch movies at the theatre, it's worse. I was bored to death, and sick of the usual flicks - and dreaded watching another Hollywood film because I sure wasn't ready to spend the remains of my allowance on something that looked like a mix of Harry Potter, romantic comedy and whodunit. They all leave me somewhat numb.

Just as I thought movies had lost their capacity to 'move' the audiences emotionally, I chanced upon an obscure indie film directed by a little-known guy from New Jersey. And was proved wrong less than two hours later.

Garden State, the feature-length directorial debut from Zach Braff (currently known to Indian viewers as leading man "J.D." and sometime director of Scrubs [Thursday nights 8 pm, Star World]) is a truly heartwarming juxtaposition of arthouse and romantic comedy. All the characters are dysfunctional in some or the other way, especially the main characters Andrew Largeman (Braff) and Samantha (Natalie Portman in a stellar performance). The two share a sparkling chemistry - Sam as a compulsive liar who suffers from epilepsy is a perfect foil to the straight-faced LA TV star Andrew. The latter's mind is numbed by years of drugs prescribed by his psychiatrist father as a cure for his 'angry' youth which resulted in the accident and consequent paralysis of his mother, and he is intrigued by the chirpy yet achingly fragile Sam.

The story is about Andrew's return for his mother's funeral, his meeting with old acquaintances, his discovery of how every single person is a bit of a cracked egg, and ultimately his confrontation with his father and coming to terms with his mother's death. Along the way he finds an unlikely soulmate in the lovely, childlike Sam, and his painful voyage of self-discovery ends on a happy note with doors opening to a new life.

Writer-director-actor Braff reportedly wrote this script while still in college studying film, and it shows in the combination of unusual imagery and the film being centred on people in the 18-30 age group. All the characters are in their mid-twenties, and all are suprisingly vulnerable. For all the talk about adolescence being a passing phase, the movie convinces us that this age that can be the most trying time. One not only has his/her career and personal life in mind, but also starts wondering what direction his/her life is taking. There is subtle maturity and philosophy in every frame.

Technically, the film is quite sound for a debut. There are a few continuity problems, but aside from that the characters are startlingly believable and the story is heartwarming. Braff pays rich tribute to his native New Jersey in the outdoor shots, and the warm amber lighting in the scenes featuring Sam and Andrew lend a strange aura of purity to their intimacy. Portman and Braff won several accolades (including a well-deserved Best Kiss at the MTV Movie Awards) for convincingly etching the childlike, bittersweet romance that blossoms between Andrew and Sam. Braff also brought home a Grammy for the best compilation soundtrack heard in ages, featuring everything from an invocation to Lord Ganesha to Coldplay, Thievery Corporation, The Shins, and Bonnie Sommerville.

For those not following the Golden Globe nominations, Braff has received a nod for best actor in a Comedy/Musical for Scrubs. If Garden State was anything to go by, this was not altogether unexpected, and he is certainly one of the top writer-director-actors to watch out for.

Another character that stands out in the film is Andrew's buddy Mark (finely portrayed by yet another dark horse, Peter Sarsgaard.) Sarsgaard has had roles in Boys Dont Cry, The Man In The Iron Mask, K-19:The Widowmaker, and had made his debut in Dead Man Walking. Just look at the first and the last names among the films listed above - Garden State proves that this is one more character actor who looks set to make it big.

So rent the DVD, sit back and rest assured that humanity is very much alive and kicking. Some 'moving' images do live upto their name.

Not So Hot!

A Review of GARAM MASALA (2005)
Director: Priyadarsan
fiction

Our first semester jury had just ended and I was, ahem, acquitted. So to celebrate the triumph at the trial, a group of pals and I headed out to a fast-food joint to eat. On the spur of the moment we decided to see a movie, and we had three choices - Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena, Garam Masala, and some obscure Gujarathi film whose name I couldn't read. The obvious choice? You guessed it, though I admit we chose to see GM not because of the content but because of the male content ;)

The movie began, as all Bollywood movies do, with a bang. Good ol' Mauritius with gorgeous sets, gorgeous women and gorgeous photographers Mac (Akshay Kumar) and Sam (John Abraham) having a whale of a time ogling them. There's the done-to-death Adarsh Bharatiya Nari Rimii Sen as Anjali, Mac's fiancee (for God's sake! Do single Indian women working abroad wear salwar kameez all the time???) Fortunately she doesn't have too much screen time. Neha Dhupia appears for a few minutes, which is a pity because she seems to have put in a decent performance in whatever little screen time she had.

Mac is a photographer with Garam Masala magazine and Sam is his assistant, and both have the hots for Maggie (Dhupia), the receptionist at their office. Mac's the boss but when Sam wins a photography competition by fluke, he gets a raise, a trip to the US and Maggie. Mac wows to make Sam sorry and jealous and proceeds to con three exceedingly pretty airhostesses Deepti, Pooja and Sweetie. With the help of the poker-faced housekeeper Mambo (Paresh Rawal) and a car mechanic called Babban, Mac manages to narrowly keep the three girls from discovering each other. As it gets increasingly difficult with frequent changes in flight timings (even the flights abroad seem to be irregular!) Mac is at his wits' end. Reenter Sam, who has returned from the US, and all hell breaks loose as the men try to keep the girls and cover up for Mac at the same time. Finally, after an needlessly long time, the cat's out of the bag and Mac is forced to flee with Sam in tow.

The movie is overall genuinely funny, though it drags a bit towards the end. It's a treat to see macho Kumar and metrosexy Abraham deviate from their usual sophisticated last-man-standing portrayals and play a couple of goodlooking but royally goofy guys who seem to be falling most of the time. Kumar has established himself of late as a fine comic, and Abraham shows promise of getting there. But Paresh Rawal as the droll housekeeper Mambo is simply brilliant. His sense of comic timing is perfect and his grumpy face shows a lot of expression without too much movement. It's a pity the movie didn't turn out better.

The flaws are the usual suspects - too many pretty women (it's often difficult to differentiate between the three airhostesses, both from each other and the side dancers that accompany them), too many songs, and too many uneccessary details. For instance, it would have been wonderful to show a few bits of Mac and Sam's bonding at their old apartment, rather than for just one scene, because male bonding almost always works in films (Remember Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan in Kal Ho Na Ho?) Kumar and Abraham show good chemistry, and are good together with Rawal. Personally though, what riled me is that Anjali forgives her fiance for cheating on her with three women at at time! Beats me what spineless fiancee would put up with that. And if the men are dumb, the women seem to be even dumber, and suspecting the mysterious appearance of food they didn't ask for and another woman's handbag doesn't make them look any smarter, because Mac manages to convince them at the end. This isn't Priyadarsan at his best but its shows a lot more promise than Kyon Ki.

Watch it for a good time of laughter with friends, and of course, if you have a crush on Kumar and Abraham. This masala goes well with some chai.